Andrei Monastyrski Empty Zones

e-flux presents an exhibition of select videos from Podjachev's Youtube channel (2010-2011), by Russian artist Andrei Monastyrski, curated by Boris Groys. This collaboration takes as its starting point the exhibition Empty Zones, 2011, curated by Groys for the Russian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. Empty Zones looks at Monastyrski's continuing project 'Trips Out of Town,' with the still active artistic group Collective Actions, founded by Monastyrski in 1976—with Nikita Alekseev, Elena Elagina, Georgy Kizevalter, Igor Makarevich, Andrei Monastyrski, Nikolai Panitkov, Sergei Romashko, and Sabine Hänsgen—along with Monastyrski's photographic series Earth Works, and videos from Podachov's Youtube channel. Empty Zones positions Monastyrski as key in establishing a unique and influential genre of Russian performance art in which the production of documentation is the primary goal. The presentation of videos from Podjachev's Youtube channel (2010-2011)—videos of Monastyrski's more recent performances—at e-flux in New York in conjunction with Performa 11 brings this very particular example of Eastern European conceptual art practice into the context of performance art in New York and the West.